the United States presence in Syria is completely illegal both under international law and under the U.S. government’s War Powers Act. Syria is a sovereign state with a recognized government and there is no U.N. or Congressional mandate that permits Washington to station its soldiers, Marines and airmen within the country’s borders. The argument that the recent Authorizations to Use Military Force (AUMF) permitted the activity because groups linked to al-Qaeda were active there and the local government was unable to expel them is only thinly credible as the U.S. has also attacked Syrian Army forces and the militiamen linked to Syria’s ally Iran. That constitutes a war crime.

Trump can under the War Powers Act take military action to counter an imminent threat, which was never the case from Syria in any event, but after 60 days he has to cease or desist or go to Congress for authorization up to and possibly including a declaration of war. The military offensive against Syria began under President Barack Obama and it is far beyond that two-month window already, so egregiously in violation that some Congressmen are actually beginning to take notice. Democratic Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia has demanded that no military initiatives in Syria be undertaken without a Senate vote. He said on Thursday that

“I am deeply alarmed that yet again, the Trump administration continues to raise the risk of unnecessary war, disconnected from any firm policy objectives and core national security interests. To be clear, neither the 2001 or 2002 AUMFs provide authority to target Assad or Iranian proxies in Syria, and it is unacceptable for this action to be taken absent a vote and approval of Congress.”

The animus against Syria runs deep… … …
… … …The Israelis for their part were enamored of the Yinon Plan of 1982 and the Clean Break proposals made in 1996 by a team of Jewish American neocons. Their intention was to transform most of Israel’s neighboring Arab states into warring tribes and ethnicities so they would no longer be a threat. Israeli leaders have stated openly that they would prefer continued chaos in Syria, which remains a prime target… … …

Palestine before 1948, before Israel The video contains pictures of different Palestinian cities during the 1920’s and 1930’s, before the creation of the state of israel by the zionists in 1948.

Even if jews were living in palestine before 1948, still it does not legalize the bandit state called “israel”.

“If I came with a bible in one hand and a rifle in the other, knocked on your door, and said: “According to my bible, my family lived in your home two thousand years ago”, would you pack up your bags and leave?”— Dr. Norman Finkelstein

When President Trump on 6 December 2017 declared unilaterally Jerusalem as the capital of Israel to where the US Embassy shall relocate, he violated UN Resolutions, international law, common sense and went against all diplomatic efforts to eventually bring peace to the region, not to speak about 130 countries that have already voiced opposition to such a decision. And this, before the Peace Process is coming to an end, at which point the 1993 Oslo Peace Accords would play out. They are also called the Road Map for Peace, between Palestine and Israel, which foresees a two-state solution and accordingly a mutual decision on Jerusalem becoming the capital city for both Palestine and Israel. These Oslo Peace Accords are still valid today.

But Mr. Trump may not have a clue that such a Peace Accord even exists. And his handlers obviously had no interest of telling him. – And even if they did, it would make no difference, because the exceptional nation has no scruples demolishing any agreements of the past, regardless whether or not it – the US of A – were party to the shaping of them.

Instead of bringing peace, Trump killed the aspiration of peace, he de facto killed the notion of a two-state solution – and he effectively isolated the US from literally the rest of the world. Was this a bold provocation inspired by Trump’s Zionist masters, a trial balloon to find out how much of impunity the world would tolerate?

Behind the Trump strategy lays a broader objective, the creation of a Greater Israel, that would stretch from the Euphrates to the Nile, cutting through Saudi Arabia, absorbing Jordan, a large portion of Syria and most of Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. This is to make Israel a Middle Eastern super-power, sitting on a huge junk of the sub-continent’s energy wealth and on most of the Middle east’s fresh water reserves, on behalf of the Anglo-Zionist Empire… … …

“My father, my grandfather, my great grandfather, my uncles and great uncles were all born in Jerusalem and lived in the same neighborhood for more than 700 years. Neither Trump nor any U.S. president can erase our history with a stroke of a pen”.

How many foreign-funded thinktanks in Washington are pushing an agenda dictated by the amount of cold hard cash flowing into their coffers from abroad?

Shall we have the public pronouncements of the Alliance to Secure Democracy – funded by a bakers’ dozen of foreign governments – labeled with the requisite Department of Justice “disclaimer”?

What about the sainted Brookings Institution, which is on the take from a couple of dubious sources? And if not, why not?

Ranked in terms of their real influence and reach, the Russians are on a par with Syria, Zimbabwe, and the office of the Orleanist Pretender to the French Throne. The lobbyists with real clout – the Saudis, the Israelis, the EU/Franco-Gerrman bloc, the China lobbies (Taiwan and the mainland), not to mention George Soros, who surely qualifies as a country – are given free rein. If the feds are now intent on strictly enforcing the FARA, there are an awful lot of folks in the Imperial City who are going to have to come out of the closet, so to speak, and admit they’re simply megaphones for foreign actors.

If we’re going to start prohibiting or even limiting the activities of foreign lobbyists, then groups like the Atlantic Council – flush with foreign cash — are going to be set back on their heels. Which is why a strict double standard is in place and will remain so… … …

The World Gold Council has reported that the Central Bank of Russia has more than doubled the pace of its gold purchases, bringing its reserves to the highest level since Putin took power 17 years ago.

Russia’s desire to break away from the hegemony of the U.S. dollar and the dollar payment system is well-known. Over 60% of global reserves and 80% of global payments are in dollars.

The U.S. is the only country with veto power at the International Monetary Fund, the global lender of last resort.

Perhaps Russia’s most aggressive weapon in its war on dollars is gold. The first line of defense is to acquire physical gold, which cannot be frozen out of the international payments system or hacked…. … …

Russia is also part of a reported Chinese plan to install a new international monetary order that excludes U.S. dollars. Under that plan, China could buy Russian oil with yuan and Russia could then exchange that yuan for gold on the Shanghai exchange.

Now it appears Russia has another weapon in its anti-dollar arsenal.

The ultimate loser here will be the dollar. That’s one more reason for investors to allocate part of their portfolios to assets such as gold… … …

Trump Signs Sanctions Bill – Another Deep State Victory

President Trump signed the Russia, Iran, North Korea sanctions bill, which restricts his ability to improve relations with any of the three countries absent explicit Congressional approval. Is the deep state in total control of U.S. foreign policy?

The U.S. must abandon its interventionist policy towards Venezuela and steer clear of the internal affairs of other Latin American countries, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said in a message to Donald Trump while speaking to RT.

In an interview with RT Spanish, Maduro stressed that his country strives to live peacefully with its neighbors, and called on U.S. President Donald Trump to yield to reason and put an end to his administration’s aggressive policy towards the Venezuelan government.

“As a president, I appeal to him, to President Donald Trump: Stop aggression towards Venezuela. Venezuela is a fundamental basis of stability in the whole Caribbean Basin”, Maduro said, adding that he hopes his words do not fall on deaf ears.

“Think well, US strategists, Venezuela wants to live in peace, it wants to live quietly. Stop your aggression,” Maduro said. He added that in the worst case scenario, “the Bolivarian revolution will have to take up arms and we will be again fighting under the same flag and across our border”……………………

The moment before Russian president Vladimir Putin and his American counterpart Donald Trump locked palms has been compared to a scene from the popular political drama ‘House of Cards.’

A special channel between the Russian and American presidents will be established to further push for a settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, Russia’s Foreign Minister Lavrov has announced following the Putin-Trump meeting.

“I have a feeling that it has been confirmed that both the Russian and American presidents are driven by their national interests, which they see primarily in looking for mutually beneficial agreements rather than by trying to play out some confrontational scenarios”, Lavrov added

Lavrov said that there’s confirmation to the US and Jordan’s commitment to the unity and integrity of Syrian territory, adding that Russian military police will preserve security around de-escalation zones…………………………

Trump took a tour of the Holy Sepulcher Church like a museum and posed for photos. There is nothing wrong about praying at the Wailing Wall, but why didn’t he kneel at Jesus’ tomb or his Stone of Anointing or the actual Holy Sepulcher? Has any US president ever knelt there??? Let us know. (more videos of Putin here)

At least 5 Bahraini people have been killed in regime forces’ raid on the town of Diraz. According to Bahraini Interior Ministry, more than 280 people were also detained during the attack. Following the incident, protesters poured into the streets in several towns across the country to condemn the bloody attack. The demonstrators chanted anti-government slogans and expressed solidarity with the country’s top cleric Sheikh Isa Qassim. Bahraini forces fired tear gas to disperse the angry crowd. The raid on Diraz comes two days after a Bahraini court sentenced Sheikh Qassim to one year in prison. The measure drew criticism from both inside and outside the tiny Persian Gulf kingdom. Iran’s FM: “Deadly regime attack on Bahraini protesters result of Trump’s ‘cozying up’ to Saudis”.

Embattled at home in a do-or-die war (or “witch hunt”) against powerful factions of the deep state, President Trump, in the first stop of his first foreign trip, lands with pomp and circumstance in the ultimate totalitarian theocracy.

Trump will be lavishly entertained by a parasite monarchy that for decades exports the ideological matrix of all forms of Salafi-jihadi terrorism; a regime that denies the rights of its own population and teaches them to hate foreigners, non-Muslims, women, art and a culture-heavy past (as in bombing priceless historical sites in Yemen).

The same regime still denies, as a state, any implication in financing the most extreme terror outfits – without, for that matter, preventing influent pious nationals of doing so on an individual basis; interferes in the religious culture of Sunni Muslim nations all over the world and sterilizes any possible debate about Islam; foments an ethnic-confessional war between Sunnis and Shi’ites that envelops the whole Middle East in fire and blood with the only objective of enfeebling geopolitical rival Iran, all the while meekly invoking American protection.

Talk about a nasty theocracy with no redeeming qualities. And that’s only the short version………………..

Call these Saudi butchers “animals”
is an offense to real animals.

Where does Trump goes on the first stage of his first international trip as POTUS? To the BIRTHPLACE of the “Radical Islamic Terrorism” that he had stated he wanted to ERADICATE. He went to sell billions of dollars in weapons to the worst suppliers of weaponry to jihadist mercenary-terrorist gangs in the world: the criminal Wahhabi family of al-Saud. Trump, as his former colleague Obama, and like all the latest U.S. presidents, is a very dangerous crazy man. Hillary could not have done better … but if the world is now on the verge of a major catastrophe, we must say thanks to him.

This just mean:
1) – Money for the USA war lobby,
2) – Weapons for Terrorism,
3) – Death for Middle Eastern Peoples
… and beyond… … …

US First Lady Melania Trump, First daughter Ivanka Trump and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson are among those accompanying the president in the trip. The Saudi King Salman personally welcomed Trump at the airport. The two sat together in the Saudi Royal court. Finalizing a U-S proposed arms deal worth billions of dollars is on the trip’s agenda.

Trump’s signed a number of defence and business deals totalling in excess of $380bn.

Riyadh is a major importer of US arms and has used them to wage one of the most horrible wars on the Yemeni nation killing thousands of civilians.

The World Health Organization says the Cholera epidemic in Yemen could reach 300-thousand cases within six months.

Humanitarian organizations say Saudi Arabia’s war on Yemen and its crippling sea and naval blockade are to blame for the humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen. According to the U-N, one child dies every ten minutes from preventable causes in the Arab country. This, as the United States is set to give the go-ahead for a huge arms deal with Saudi Arabia…………………….

The East is the greatest threat to the petrodollar — and Saudi Arabia is already eyeing oil trade in yuan.

Should we welcome closer ties between Saudi Arabia and China? As the Asia Times writes, “China’s slow intertwining with Saudi Arabia complements the Sino-Russo alliance. Primarily, its benefits could lead to a realistic threat to the petrodollar.”

While we’d prefer Saudi Arabia to disappear entirely, if it has to exist — and from a pragmatic standpoint, it probably isn’t going anywhere — it would greatly benefit the world if Riyadh dumped the dollar and adopted the yuan.

President Bashar al-Assad stressed that what has been said on Khan Sheikhoun is a fabricated story, adding that the West and the United States blocked any delegation from coming to investigate, because if they come, they will find that all their narratives about what happened in Khan Sheikhoun and then the attack on Shairat airport was a false flag, was a lie.

In an interview given to Russia’s RIA Novosti and Sputnik news agencies, President al-Assad said that we always announce that we are ready to cooperate with any country who is genuinely ready or wants or has the will to fight terrorism.

He added that we already know that the West supports the terrorists and it doesn’t have a will to fight them…………………..

FULL VIDEO OF THE INTERVIEW IN ENGLISH……………….

FULL TRANSCRIPT IN ENGLISH OF THE INTERVIEW………………

President al-Assad: “…………..when Russia supports our army, it not only protects the Syrian citizens, it also protects the Russian citizens, and I think the European and others. So, for them they don’t look at it as commercial war like the Americans; when they launch a war they calculated how much jobs can you create out of this war. They look at it as a war that needs to protect their citizens, our citizens, other citizens, the position of Russia, the balance, the political balance, the military balance around the world, as a great country. So, in that regard, you don’t look at the armaments as how much do they cost or how much do they bring as benefit or profit.”……………………….

Trump, elected promising less military interventions abroad, is looking for a pretext to militarily intervene in Syria

Bolivia’s UN envoy held the U.S. to account over its unreliability on WMD claims, in a moment that reminded the world of the false intelligence that lead to the Iraq Invasion. How can the U.S. be believed over such claims in Syria, when it resists a ground investigation in Idlib, where it says the chemical attack carried out by the Syrian govt, took place? Assad says the U.S. is looking for a pretext to militarily intervene. This, under a president who had promised less foreign intervention. At the same time, the Syrian govt says the U.S. attacked Dayr al Zawr (Deir Ezzour), causing the release of toxic gas, & the killing of many innocents, which is symbolic of what Syria has said all along: that militants have chemical weapons in their possession.

Lyndon LaRouche characterized the military strike by the United States against Syria as a British coup in progress against the President of the United States which must be met by the American population stamping out all British imperial influences in the United States.In reviewing the Syria bombing ordered by President Donald J. Trump yesterday, Lyndon and Helga LaRouche condemned it in the strongest terms possible. President Trump received a fraudulent briefing on the event itself—asserting that Bashar al-Assad was responsible for a chemical weapons attack on his own population – despite the fact that U.S. military forces on the ground in Syria knew that the chemicals came from an Al-Qaeda base, as stated by Russia and Syria. President Trump was lied to by individuals in his national security/intelligence chain of command. The sources utilized to claim Syrian culpability for the attack are exclusively British, the same people who are coordinating the international attack on Trump’s Presidency, in an effort to destroy any positive potential for relationships with Russia and China to rebuild the U.S. and world economy. This was a violation of international law. Trump was setup. “The British set this in motion against the entire human race,” Lyndon LaRouche emphasized.

LaRouche said the Trump must immediately seek out those responsible for the fraud and fire them. A United Nations investigation of the incident must occur immediately. Following both, a war crimes prosecution would be appropriate. The President should never listen to the British. It is not accidental that this setup occurred right when the President was meeting with China’s President Xi Jinping—a meeting which has the British and their Wall Street allies completely apoplectic—a meeting which could portend a new and peaceful paradigm for economic and scientific progress.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has discussed the U.S. missile strike in Syria with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson in a phone conversation, the ministry has said. Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has stressed there is no evidence of Syria’s involvement in the Idlib chemical incident. On Saturday he told his American counterpart that the U.S. strike on the Syrian base had played into the extremists’ hands. Lavrov told his U.S. counterpart that Washington’s claims, accusing the Syrian army of the use of chemical weapons in Idlib on April 4, were “inaccurate and inconclusive“, the ministry said. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has said [in an interview with ABC’s “This Week” host, George Stephanopoulos, which was aired Sunday] the Syrian crisis can only be solved through a political process, claiming it’s not regime change but the defeat of Daesh (ISISI, ISIL, IS…) terrorist group that Washington is seeking in Syria. “Our strategy in Syria, our priority is first to defeat ISIS“, the U.S. official said …(read more here and here).

The UN security Council is holding an emergency meeting on the U.S. missile attack on a Syrian airbase. To discuss the UN Security Council meeting we’re joined by Ron Paul, chairman and founder of “The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity”.

The rush to blame the Syrian government over what occurred in Idlib’s Khan Sheykhoun has resulted in calls for objectivity not only on the part of Syria, Russia, Iran, but also from within some quarters of the US establishment. The chemical, gas attack in Idlib, to many, would serve no interest of President Assad at a time of peace talks &, arguably, an upper hand militarily. It may though serve militants well, who have been able to not only store & use chemical weapons in the past, but can now use this to pressure the US & others into a more aggressive direct policy in Syria; if Trump’s reaction to the attack is anything to go by, they may have succeeded in that regard. Is this US administration going to step away from its refusal to force regime change in Syria? YES!!! Because all pro-Zionist are liars and murderers from the very beginning.

Trump Unmasked: ie, the true face of the American Zionists servants, fathers and protectors of their terrorist gangs

The United States has fired dozens of cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield in response to this week’s alleged chemical attack in the Arab country that it has blamed on the government, according to multiple media reports. The U.S. military launched on Friday morning at least 50 Tomahawk missiles against several targets on the “Shayrat” base in Homs province in western Syria, reports said citing U.S. military officials. The missiles were fired from U.S. Navy warships in the Mediterranean Sea, a official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Trump ordered the strike just a day after he pointed the finger at Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the deadly attack which killed at least 70 people in the town of Khan Shaykhun in Idlib. The foreign-sponsored militants active in the area and some Western officials blamed the attack on the Syrian military whereas Damascus rejected the allegation, insisting it “has never used them [chemical weapons], anytime, anywhere, and will not do so in the future.” Trump said on Thursday that “something should happen” with regard to Assad in the wake of Tuesday’s attack.

The U.S. has launched 50 to 60 Tomahawk missiles against the Syrian military base near Homs after President Donald Trump ordered the strikes in response for the chemical attack in Idlib, blaming the incident on President Bashar Assad.U.S. ships stationed in the Mediterranean Sea reportedly launched the strike on Syria’s Shayrat airbase on Thursday night local time. Fifty-nine U.S. Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles were launched from the U.S. warships USS Porter and USS Ross from the Eastern Mediterranean Sea, Pentagon spokesman Captain Jeff Davis said in a statement. (Read more).

“Of course if the ranks of the terrorist armies are made up of dunderheaded idiots, the elitist echelons seem comprised of those substantially devoid of imagination. It’s like they keep trying to pull off the same con job over and over again, thinking nobody will get wise.

A good many of us have indeed grown wise, but one who still remains bamboozled, at least if we go by his comments in the above video, is Donald Trump. This is the most inflammatory, war-like rhetoric we’ve seen yet from Trump. Is it really possible that neither the president nor his advisors have stopped to consider the point that security specialist and counter-terrorism advisor Charles Shoebridge makes by way of analysis in the following video–i.e. that at a time when it has been making “great victories sweeping across Syria in the fight against the rebels,” the Assad government really would have no motivation whatsoever for carrying out an attack of this nature…and that “the people who benefit from this kind of attack are the rebels themselves,” as the analyst puts it? Is it really possible Trump hasn’t considered this, or that he hasn’t bothered to question what the media, who he not so long ago accused of spreading fake news, are now reporting on this alleged chemical attack?

Or, alternately, is it possible that Trump has now (regardless of what he may or may not have been in the past) become a pawn of the deep state?”(Fig Trees and Vineyards, 5/4/2017)

The neocon royalty Kagans are counting on Democrats and liberals to be the foot soldiers in the new neocon campaign to push Republicans and President Trump into more “regime change” wars, reports Robert Parry.

The Kagan family, America’s neoconservative aristocracy, has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over not gaining its expected influence from the election of Hillary Clinton and from its loss of official power at the start of the Trump presidency.

Back pontificating on prominent op-ed pages, the Family Kagan now is pushing for an expanded U.S. military invasion of Syria and baiting Republicans for not joining more enthusiastically in the anti-Russian witch hunt over Moscow’s alleged help in electing Donald Trump.

In a Washington Post op-ed on March 7, Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the Project for the New American Century and a key architect of the Iraq War, jabbed at Republicans for serving as “Russia’s accomplices after the fact” by not investigating more aggressively.

Then, Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats Project at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and his wife, Kimberly Kagan, president of her own think tank, Institute for the Study of War, touted the idea of a bigger U.S. invasion of Syria in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on March 15.

Yet, as much standing as the Kagans retain in Official Washington’s world of think tanks and op-ed placements, they remain mostly outside the new Trump-era power centers looking in, although they seem to have detected a door being forced open.

Neoconservative pundit Robert Kagan and his wife, Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland, run a remarkable family business: she has sparked a hot war in Ukraine and helped launch Cold War II with Russia and he steps in to demand that Congress jack up military spending so America can meet these new security threats…………………………………..

The Pentagon has quietly ordered fresh deployments of Special Operations troops to the Middle East and North Africa as the U.S. intensifies its military engagement in Yemen, according to a report.

The moves signal that the U.S. military appears to be launching a more aggressive campaign against al-Qaeda in Yemen, as well as Daesh in Syria and some regions of North Africa, ABC News reported, citing former and current military officials.

A veteran of 20 years of secret military operations said the administration of President Donald Trump has broadened the authority for more such operations overseas………………

Ukrainian president Petro Poroshenko is playing a desperate poker game in which he is gambling his political future with an all-out war in Europe. In a scene reminiscent of an old Hollywood B-movie Western, Poroshenko appears like a washed-up gunslinger with a lousy hand of cards who is bluffing with empty bravado.
However, the difference is Poroshenko is no gunslinger. And this is not fiction. It is grim reality where lives are suffering from his poker games.

He is a billionaire chocolate oligarch who along with his cronies in Kiev have driven their country into ruins. If a war breaks out, these effete, self-dealing elites will not be doing the fighting. They will find some luxury exile from where to spend their embezzled loot.
… … …
According to Eduard Basurin, the vice commander of the DPR, as quoted in Fort Russ: “Following the talk between Poroshenko and Trump, Ukraine will in the near future cease to receive financial and military support for its terrorist operation in the land of Donbass. In connection with this, the Ukrainian president has fallen into complete despair and is ready to desperately commit to the most reckless action of unleashing a full-scale and bloody war in Eastern Europe.”……………………..

Prominent DPR Commander ‘Givi’ ~ The legendary commander of the Somali battalion of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Mikhail Tolstykh, popular with his nickname “Givi” has been killed in his office in Donetsk.

The first reports from Russian media have suggested that an explosive detonated and killed Givi. The DPR officials have labeled it as a “terrorist act” and that they’ll do everything possible to find the ones behind the assault. The news comes as the self-proclaimed republics of DPR and LPR have been witnessing the largest military activities since the signing of the Minsk-2 agreement.

Givi is yet another victim of such assault as earlier this week LPR’s colonel Oleg Anashtenko died in a similar case when his car was blown up. In October 2016, another legendary commander, Aresen Pavlov “Motorola”, was killed in an explosion in his home.

A terrorist attack in the capital of the Lugansk People’s Republic in Donbass killed two people including the chief of the LPR People’s Militia Office. Confirmed the death of colonel Anashchenko, classifying the explosion as a terrorist attack.

On October 16, a blast in an elevator killed a prominent commander of the Donetsk People’s Republic colonel Arseniy Pavlov (call sign Motorola). The Donetsk authorities accused Kiev of masterminding the murder.

In May, a top military commander of the Lugansk People’s Republic, Alexei Mozgovoi, was assassinated by unknown gunmen when his car ran into an ambush……………

The US is not as innocent as it may seem, according to President Donald Trump. When Fox News host Bill O’Reilly called Vladimir Putin “a killer”, Trump responded: “We’ve got a lot of killers”…(…READ MORE…).

The Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Igor Pavlovsky, admitted during a press briefing today that the Ukrainian armed forces are carrying out offensive operations in Donbass.

“Today, no matter what, meter by meter, step by step and seizing the opportunity, our boys are heroically moving forward,” Pavlovsky stated while commenting on the situation in Avdeevka.

However, the minister did not comment on questions concerning Ukraine’s observance of the Minsk Agreements, in particular the agreement on withdrawing heavy weapons from the contact line.

The Donbass militia and Ukrainian security forces have both declared that the situation in Donbass has deteriorated.

In the city of Avdeevka under Ukrainian control, where more than 30,000 people reside, a state of emergency has been declared due to shelling.

A “difficult situation” also prevails in militia-controlled Yasinovataya and Donetsk. The Ministry of Defense of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic has stated that the UAF has launched six offensive attempts over the last 24 hours, losing more than 90 men in the process.

The Kremlin believes that it is the Ukrainian side that has opted for active combat operations in the Avdeevka area.

In the follow up to the phone conversation between Presidents Putin and Trump, where they agreed that a top priority in bilateral relations between Russia and the US is joining efforts in fighting their main threat, international terrorism, Russian political analyst Elena Suponina reviews why Barack Obama failed to pursue this agenda.
According to the announcement on President Putin’s official website, “the two leaders emphasized that joining efforts in fighting the main threat – international terrorism – is a top priority. The presidents spoke about the close coordination of actions between Russia and the USA aimed at defeating ISIS [Islamic State, Daesh] and other terrorists groups in Syria”.
… … …
Russian political analyst and expert on Asia and the Middle East, Elena Suponina delved into why Obama, Trump’s predecessor, was so reluctant to actually take on the terrorists directly.
The U.S. former administrations have repeatedly attempted to adapt radical Islam to their own needs, in other words to use the extremists in their own interests…………

Russian President Vladimir Putin has had his first telephone conversation with new US President Donald Trump. They discussed the joint fight against international terrorism, the situation in the Middle East, the Ukrainian crisis and plans for a future meeting of the two leaders.

“The Presidents have spoken in favor of establishing a real coordination between the US and Russian actions in order to defeat ISIS and other terrorist organizations in Syria,” the statement said.

The two leaders also discussed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as Iran’s nuclear program. “Major aspects of the Ukrainian crisis have been also touched upon,” the Kremlin announced.

The leaders of Russia and the US have noted a need to restore economic ties “to stimulate” further development of the relationship between the nations.

However, earlier in January, Trump said that he would consider lifting restrictions if Moscow cooperates with Washington on certain issues, such as nuclear arms reduction.

Russia has been cautious about the prospects for a potential “reset” with the US under the new administration. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said the country has no “naive expectations” and is under no “illusions”………………….

NOTICE TO READERS

These infos are not intended to be shocking or to glorify violence in any way. These articles/images/videos are for educational purposes only, for documenting and try to explain the backdrop of a historical ruthless and bloody war, whose characteristics and details are routinely distorted and smothered by the dominant media.